The Silent Struggle of My Worst Tech Interview

Photo by Natalia Y. on Unsplash

I’m thinking of applying for a few jobs before the end of the year. It’s always a great thing to look around in the market and make sure that you’re being paid what you deserve.

“In this case, I want to interview to get a job. Away from my current colleagues.”

Here documents what is possibly the worst experience I ever had in an interview room.

The background

In Asia, they’re a fan of the “Super-app”. I don’t mean Johnny come lately XTwitterX.

Years ago Grab created a super-app so successful that Uber exited from Southeast Asia.

“You don’t often hear that story over here.”

The success and excitement of Grab meant that The Secret Developer decided to apply in their (charitably said) less experienced days.

They didn’t expect what happened!

Suffering in silence

Heaps. Yeah, heaps. They frequently come up in job interviews.

So, during one of my sessions, I had a soft-ball question. Perhaps it was using a hashmap or something for “efficiency”, I don’t remember.

“I do remember it was easy for me though.”

We then went onto the more difficult question. Clearly based around the Heap. I knew that much. As to actually coding a heap, well that was just out of reach.

“This is at the time I would use value types for trees. To give you an idea of my competency.”

What did I do?

This requires a heap, but I don’t know how to code it.

My helpful interviewers suggested that we start coding.

I’m sorry I don’t know how. Got a hint?

They didn’t. It was my last interview, so guess what happened?

“This wasn't my fault. I needed a job, and I don’t just walk out on interviews when there is even a small probability of success. So, I thought they might help me out a bit.”

We sat there for the rest of the session. I think it might have been 20 minutes, but it felt like a million years. In silence. Doing nothing.

“No job for The Secret Developer in this case!”

Conclusion

The Secret Developer didn’t know how to code heaps a few years back, so didn’t score a good job. 

Do you know how many times heaps have been useful in their programming life since then?

Zero

“As expected.”